Through the Bible – Day 137

₁As soon as Hezekiah heard the news, he tore off his clothes in sorrow and put on sackcloth. Then he went into the temple of the LORD. ₂He told Prime Minister Eliakim, Assistant Prime Minister Shebna, and the senior priests to dress in sackcloth and tell the prophet Isaiah:

₅When these leaders went to Isaiah, ₆he told them that the LORD had this message for Hezekiah:

₈Meanwhile, the commander of the Assyrian forces heard that his king had left the town of Lachish and was now attacking Libnah. So he went there.

₉About this same time the king of Assyria learnt that King Tirhakah of Ethiopia was on his way to attack him. Then the king of Assyria sent some messengers with this note for Hezekiah:

₁₄After Hezekiah had read the note from the king of Assyria, he took it to the temple and spread it out for the LORD to see. ₁₅He prayed:

₂₀Isaiah went to Hezekiah and told him that the LORD God of Israel had said:

₃₅That same night the LORD sent an angel to the camp of the Assyrians, and he killed one hundred and eighty-five thousand of them. And so the next morning, the camp was full of dead bodies. ₃₆After this King Sennacherib went back to Assyria and lived in the city of Nineveh. ₃₇One day he was worshipping in the temple of his god Nisroch, when his sons, Adrammelech and Sharezer, killed him with their swords. They escaped to the land of Ararat, and his son Esarhaddon became king.

₁About this time, Hezekiah got sick and was almost dead. Isaiah the prophet went in and told him, “The LORD says you won't ever get well. You are going to die, so you had better start doing what needs to be done.”

₂Hezekiah turned towards the wall and prayed, ₃“Don't forget that I have been faithful to you, LORD. I have obeyed you with all my heart, and I do whatever you say is right.” After this, he cried hard.

₄Before Isaiah got to the middle court of the palace, ₅the LORD sent him back to Hezekiah with this message:

₇Then Isaiah said to the king's servants, “Bring some mashed figs and place them on the king's open sore. He will then get well.”

₈Hezekiah asked Isaiah, “Can you prove that the LORD will heal me, so that I can worship in his temple in three days?”

₉Isaiah replied, “The LORD will prove to you that he will keep his promise. Will the shadow made by the setting sun on the stairway go forward ten steps or back ten steps?”

₁₀“It's normal for the sun to go forward,” Hezekiah answered. “But how can it go back?”

₁₁Isaiah prayed, and the LORD made the shadow go back ten steps on the stairway built for King Ahaz.

₁₂Merodach Baladan, the son of Baladan, was now king of Babylonia. And when he learnt that Hezekiah had been sick, he sent messengers with letters and a gift for him. ₁₃Hezekiah welcomed the messengers and showed them all the silver, the gold, the spices, and the fine oils that were in his storehouse. He even showed them where he kept his weapons. Nothing in his palace or in his entire kingdom was kept hidden from them.

₁₄Isaiah asked Hezekiah, “Where did these men come from? What did they want?”

“They came all the way from Babylonia,” Hezekiah answered.

₁₅“What did you show them?” Isaiah asked.

Hezekiah answered, “I showed them everything in my kingdom.”

₁₆Then Isaiah told Hezekiah:

₁₉Hezekiah thought, “At least our nation will be at peace for a while.” So he told Isaiah, “The message you brought me from the LORD is good.”

₂₀Everything else Hezekiah did while he was king, including how he made the upper pool and tunnel to bring water into Jerusalem, is written in The History of the Kings of Judah. ₂₁Hezekiah died, and his son Manasseh became king.

_43-44Jesus had said, “Prophets are honoured everywhere, except in their own country.” Then two days later he left ₄₅and went to Galilee. The people there welcomed him, because they had gone to the festival in Jerusalem and had seen everything he had done.

₄₆While Jesus was in Galilee, he returned to the village of Cana, where he had turned the water into wine. There was an official in Capernaum whose son was sick. ₄₇And when the man heard that Jesus had come from Judea, he went and begged him to keep his son from dying.

₄₈Jesus told the official, “You won't have faith unless you see miracles and wonders!”

₄₉The man replied, “Lord, please come before my son dies!”

₅₀Jesus then said, “Your son will live. Go on home to him.” The man believed Jesus and set off to return home.

₅₁Some of the official's servants met him along the road and told him, “Your son is better!” ₅₂He asked them when the boy got better, and they answered, “The fever left him yesterday at one o'clock.”

₅₃The boy's father realized that at one o'clock the day before, Jesus had told him, “Your son will live!” So the man and everyone in his family put their faith in Jesus.

₅₄This was the second miracle that Jesus performed after he left Judea and went to Galilee.

₁Later, Jesus went to Jerusalem for another Jewish festival. ₂In the city near the sheep gate was a pool with five porches, and its name in Hebrew was Bethzatha.

_3-4Many sick, blind, lame, and crippled people were lying close to the pool.

₅Beside the pool was a man who had been sick for thirty-eight years. ₆When Jesus saw the man and realized that he had been crippled for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to be healed?”

₇The man answered, “Lord, I don't have anyone to put me in the pool when the water is stirred up. I try to get in, but someone else always gets there first.”

₈Jesus told him, “Pick up your mat and walk!” ₉At once the man was healed. He picked up his mat and started walking around. The day on which this happened was a Sabbath.

₁₀When the Jewish leaders saw the man carrying his mat, they said to him, “This is the Sabbath! No one is allowed to carry a mat on the Sabbath.”

₁₁But he replied, “The man who healed me told me to pick up my mat and walk.”

₁₂They asked him, “Who is this man that told you to pick up your mat and walk?” ₁₃But he did not know who Jesus was, and Jesus had left because of the crowd.

₁₄Later, Jesus met the man in the temple and told him, “You are now well. But don't sin any more or something worse might happen to you.” ₁₅The man left and told the leaders that Jesus was the one who had healed him. ₁₆They started making a lot of trouble for Jesus because he did things like this on the Sabbath.

₁₇But Jesus said, “My Father has never stopped working, and that is why I keep on working.” ₁₈Now the leaders wanted to kill Jesus for two reasons. First, he had broken the law of the Sabbath. But even worse, he had said that God was his Father, which made him equal with God.